1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a method, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium for supporting viewing examination images obtained in at least one endoscopic examination.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
Endoscopes for capturing images of a patient's body cavity are known. An insertion section of the endoscope is inserted into the patient's body cavity and the images are captured by an imaging unit, which is incorporated in a distal end portion of the insertion section. In an endoscopic examination using the endoscope, for example, in a screening examination of an upper gastrointestinal tract, a plurality of still images are captured throughout the upper intestinal tract including mouth, esophagus, and stomach. The number of the still images captured in one screening examination is enormous. For example, in a case where the still images are automatically captured at predetermined time intervals (for example, at time intervals of three seconds), several hundreds of examination images are obtained in one screening examination. These images are stored on a per endoscopic examination basis in a data storage unit (image storage unit) such as an image database.
After the endoscopic examination, a series of the examination images obtained in the endoscopic examination are displayed by an image viewer for viewing the examination images. A doctor views the displayed examination images to perform a diagnosis. The examination images obtained in the endoscopic examination include many images that are unnecessary for the diagnosis. For example, the examination images include those captured in test image capture performed before the endoscopic examination and those automatically captured. In the screening examination, the enormous number of examination images including the unnecessary images are viewed to inspect the presence or absence of abnormalities such as a lesion.
Techniques described in US2010/0067808 (corresponding to Japanese Patent No. 5147308) and US2010/0115469 (corresponding to Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-295490), which enable quickly viewing the examination images that are necessary for diagnosis, are known.
In the US2010/0067808, the examination image is analyzed and an imaged body part (the esophagus, the stomach, or the like) in the examination image is identified. Some of the examination images having the same body part as the identified body part are extracted and only the extracted examination images are viewed. Thereby the number of the examination images to be viewed is reduced and thus the efficiency in viewing the examination images is improved.
The US2010/0115469 describes a technique to narrow down the examination images by setting a keyword (e.g. an imaged body part), which represents a feature of the examination image, for each examination image. Thereby the examination images to be viewed are narrowed down based on the keyword and thus the efficiency in viewing the examination images is improved.
However, because some of the examination images are extracted through the image analysis in the US2010/0067808, the examination images that are unnecessary for diagnosis may be extracted or the examination images that are necessary for diagnosis may be omitted.
With the use of the technique described in the US2010/0115469, the keyword may be set for each examination image, for example, at the time of the screening examination or at the time of preparation of an examination report, into which a doctor writes findings of the examination image. Subsequently, the examination images that are necessary for diagnosis are viewed easily and quickly by a keyword search.
However, setting the keyword for each examination image needs much time and effort. In particular, for example, in the case of the screening examination, setting the keywords to the enormous number of images requires extreme time and effort.